Tag: Apple Watch

An International Data Corporation (IDC) report has identified the top shipper of wearables during the quarter.

The IDC has now released its “Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker” report, which identified the number of wearable technology devices that were shipped in Q1 of this year, saying that there were 11.4 million of these gadgets.

This marks a tremendous raise over the wearables from the same quarter last year, which was 3.8 million.

That represents a tremendous growth of 200 percent when it comes to the shipments of wearable technology. Moreover, the report also indicated that this growth in the industry appears to be relatively steady. Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers senior research analyst, Jitesh Ubrani, explained that “As with any young market, price erosion has been quite drastic. We now see over 40% of the devices priced under $100, and that’s one reason why the top 5 vendors have been able to grow their dominance from two thirds of the market in the first quarter of last year to three quarters this quarter.”

That said, wearable technology’s growth does not appear to be dependent on dropping prices.

The entrance of Apple with its Watch that is priced at a higher level has shown that there is some consumer interest in paying more in order to receive a product from a premium brand or one that is currently in the spotlight. What will be interesting is whether or not that consumer interest actually continues or if this represents a novelty that will wear off after a period of time.

The IDC report also pointed out that it was Fitbit that took the top spot in terms of its share of the wearable tech market. The data in the report indicated that the company was holding onto a hefty 34.2 percent of the total global wearables market.

During the first quarter of this year, Fitbit, alone, shipped 3.9 million of its devices. In second place was Xiaomi, which shipped a strong but notably lower 2.8 million units. Garmin and Samsung took the third and fourth spots on the list, respectively. The fifth place was grabbed onto by Jawbone.

The first person to receive a ticket for using the smartwatch while behind the wheel is in Quebec, Canada.

A man named Jeffrey Macesin, who lives in Quebec, Canada, has now become the first person to receive a traffic ticket for having used the Apple Watch while behind the wheel of a vehicle that was in operation.

That said, Macesin has revealed that he intends to appeal this fine as he was not using a handheld device.

The ticket was for CAD$120 (approximately US$96) and four demerit points were added to Macesin’s license after he was spotted by police using his Apple Watch to change the song that was playing on his iPhone. The smartphone, itself, was in a bag, plugged into a charging cable that was also connecting the device to the radio. He explained “I have it in the bag charging while the auxiliary cable is plugged in to the radio and this controls my phone to play the music,” adding that “I was changing songs with my hand on the steering wheel.”

As the Apple Watch was used to change the music, a police car turned on his lights and pulled Macesin over.

Macesin obtained his smartwatch on the first day of the device launch, April 24. He has now been prosecuted under Section 439.1 of the Quebec Highway Safety Code, which says that “no person may, while driving a road vehicle, use a hand-held device that includes a telephone function.” What Macesin is now arguing is that a smartwatch is not a hand-held device. It is wearable technology. The reason is that the device was not in his hand, it was on his wrist.

Wearable technology has caused people to experience troubles behind the wheel in the past. In October 2013, a woman was famously pulled over for having been wearing smartglasses. Cecilia Abadie was driving in San Diego while wearing the Google Glass headset. That said, that situation was different from the one involving the Apple Watch in Quebec, as the law in California said that the regulation that was violated was for “driving with monitor visible to the driver,” which specified the device display as opposed to the nature of the gadget.